Layman

Well, you are a Doherty Disciple. He stakes most of his claim on the Platonic connection.

And of cousre a Jesus-Myther is going to insist that Paul's epistles and Hebrews are not talking about a JH.

How so? And are you suggesting that the only valid literary theory about Hebrews is one that is free of all "problems"?

Is any of this in Hebrews?

But, yes, some humans do this by the power of God. Many Jewish prophets were believed to have historicaly performed miracles and amazing things. Moreover, so too it was believed did many Christian apostles and prophets.

I'm not surprised that is your position. But it's my position that, whatever the Gnostics believed or evolved from, the Epistle of the Hebrews speaks of a historical Jesus.

Depends on what you mean by "cemented" I suppose. The RCC did not just move against "gnostic" type heresies, but also against "too low" Christologies. Those that claimed Jesus was not a God, and those that claimed Jesus was only a human Messiah.

So what?

The existence of a minority of historical dissenters does not really tell us what is the "obvious" reading of anything, now, does it?

They were only "faithful Christains" if they were right. Of course, they may have been great people. But nothing about that means they were right about Jesus.

Yeah. Death. On earth. As a human. Like those he was sent to save.

How is this any more of a problem for HJ than it is for Doherty's theory? Either way Jesus had to descend and suffer.

I suspect it comes from a variant form of Judaism, such as that found in the Qumran community.

Luke T. Johnson, The Writings of the New Testament, at 420.

It's somewhat simplistic to assume that only one kind of Jew -- like a Pharisee -- ever converted to Christianity. Or that only one kind of Judaism influenced Christian thought. That fact certainly does nothing to support Doherty's theory.

Something can be strange, odd, or downright inexplicable, and still offer no support for the Jesus Myth.

Iasion

Greetings all,

luvluv argued that when Paul (et al) refers to crucifixion, that he must mean a literal, physical crucifixion by the Romans.

I plan to start a a new thread on this sub-topic, perhaps you would like to continue this issue there luvluv?

Quentin

Vinnie

So Paul didn't know of Judas' betrayal or didn't care?

I believe that what you cite here as evidence against the HJ actually turns out to be strong evidence in favor of the historicity of Jesus of Nazareth. There are many different views argued on this. For instance, Bishop Spong argues that Christians created the story of Judas. He asserts that Paul didn’t know about a member of the twelve betraying Jesus and that this story was a late developing tradition. I refer you to Liberating the Gospels, Spong, pp. 269-276 for his discussion on this. Under this scenario that Jesus still had a special “Twelve” disciples is widely attested to by multiple and early sources (including Paul). Crossan and others argue that "the Twelve" was a post-easter creation of the church. But leaving the views of Spong, Crossan et al, we can turn to John Meier who finds the Twelve and Judas’ betrayal to be historical.
.

This is John Meier's argument on “the Twelve” (as opposed to “the eleven”) in Volume III of A Marginal Jew, pp. 139-141

Meier’s arguments also explains away your objection. We should also note Meier’s comments on the various streams of this widespread tradition:

Chapter 25 (pp. 125-197) of Meier’s work is devoted to The Existence and Nature of the Twelve and I recommend it.

Your objection seems to actually be a solid example in favor of a human Jesus in the Pauline corpus.

Maybe we could hit Corinthians 11:23 (and the surrounding verses) next.

Vinnie

Amos

Judas was the personification of Judaism and was needed for the betrayal of Jesus. It is a great credit for Judaism.

Vinnie

Hi Amos. Why was Judas needed for the betrayal of Jesus? I am not sure what you mean by that and how did Judas betraying Jesus greatly credit Judaism?

Vinnie

Vinnie

Do you actually have anything substantial to say on the issues?

Vinnie

Greg2003

Why can't people just admit that the twelve represent the same significance as the twelve tribes of Israel and the twelve signs of the Zodiac. It is just a sacred number with some sort of relationship to the divine.

This sounds like a case of not seeing the forest for the trees. The twelve are no more historical than the gods represented by the twelve signs of the Zodiac. The symbolism is so obvious it should be clear to everyone. But the way we have had the historical value of all of this ingrained in us we can't make these rather simple connections.

There may have been pillars of the church in Jerusalem at the same time as Paul was doing his apostolic work. But these people (and I'm sure there were either more or less than 12 of them) were later folded into a HJ story to give it credibility. So the questions of who James and Peter and Judas were are certainly interesting and they may correspond to historical figures in the early church. But they were not members of a divinely significant 12.

Ted Hoffman

sorry

Ted Hoffman

My God luvluv, don't you know almost all other "saviour gods" in antiquity suffered and died for "mankind"/ their people?

Crucifition was just a recreation of the story in a Roman Context because the Romans represented the "earthly" rulers in the narrative.

Innana "went down" to Hell, was killed by demons and nailed to a post. She was later resurrected (after three days) and she rose back up to heaven as her lover took her place. There are even more compelling similarities - a google search would turn up many other myths about saviour gods who "came down" in flesh to suffer for "their people".

There is no relationship between being factual and coming kata sarka.

From birth to death, Christ is a myth.

You say you are not a literalist, do you beleive/ disbelieve in the factuality of Jesus:
1. Virgin Birth
2. Miracles
3. Resurrection

If you beleive the above three, then obviously we have such a colossal amount of philosophical baggage, we cant see the historical facts for what they are.
If you do not, then you beleive in a Jesus that was an ordinary man like you and me.
If you do, then we are together because our argument as Jesus mythers is that the Gospel Jesus was a myth - not a Historical person.
And that if indeed there is an actual physical man buried beneath the Gospel stories, we simply have to means of separating the fact from the fiction to reach him - hence we can't say he exists. But it makes more sense if he were a mythical figure for some reasons I have explained below.

Doherty's case has greater explanatory power because Christianity fits neatly into the context of the cults and myths that were extant in the first century and other than that, it actually provides christianity with a credible background. It also addresses all philosophical and scientific questions that would otherwise arise if the Gospel Jesus were to be historical. It explains the riotous diversity of the beliefs, the incongruity of Pauls message vis-a-vis that of the gospels, the paucity of historical information/ mention concerning Jesus and so many other things. You can throw all the sticks and stones you can get in protest but at the end of the day, we would all be interested in how you fit the little known facts together and explain them in a context that makes historical, religious, philosophical and scientific sense.

Quentin, please start that thread concerning Pauls kerygma. I am looking forward to a rigorous exegesis of Pauls writings.

Amos, why not sit down and provide a clear explanation to our christian friends here concerning Jesus Historicity in a mythical context?
I mean if luvluv cant see a simple case like the one below to mean something is just a belief, then we have a problem:

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
q: Your father addressed some 500 people before he disappeared.

e: Really, did he? how come we haven't seen any of them? Could you tell me where I can get one of them...

q: He did address them, if you dont beleive he addressed them, then he did not address them and you are not his son...

e: No, I just would like to know what he told them...

q: You must beleive that they saw him at the marketplace and he talked to them as I am speaking yo you now. You must beleive otherwise you are not his son.

e: <looks suspisiously at q>

q: Look, I am his true son because I saw him too and he talked to me. I died and resurrected with him...

e: <confused>

q: Look, you must beleive he resurrected and that there were many people who saw him. I saw him myself. Dont you know he was around visiting people for 40 days after his death?

e: But Mark says he ascended into heaven after three days...

q: Look, you must beleive, otherwise he never resurrected and nobody saw him in the flesh.

Lessons
1. Paul beleived he met Jesus
2. Paul beleived he died and resurrected with Jesus (does Luvluv know Paul actually said this?)
3. His death and resurrection are a matter of faith not historical in nature.

Another version
q: Your father addressed some 500 people before he disappeared.

e: Really?

q: Yes, there is Paulina, Gregory, Gabriel, Joseph and others who were there at the Galilean marketplace last year when he appeared. I can take you to talk to them and show you where he was killed and the tomb where he was buried.

e: But...

q: He resurrected, whether you believe it or not, and I can let you ask those who witnessed other than me.

Gregg

luvluv, the problem is that you are interpreting things from your modern perspective, and not putting yourself into the environment and mindset of the early Christians. These were people steeped in Greek Platonism, in the midrashic interpretation of the Hebrew scriptures, in the dying/rising savior god ethos. These philosophical and spiritual ideas were in the very air of the times.

The people Paul wrote to wouldn't have been confused because they KNEW WHAT JESUS WAS (as Vinnie so kindly pointed out to me, his audience was already Christian--and many people at that time would have understood what Paul was saying even if they WEREN'T Christian). No one had ever preached Jesus to them as a real person or given them the slightest reason to think he was a historical figure. From the time they'd been introduced to the Christian message to the moment of their baptism and beyond, Christ had been preached to them as a cosmic redeemer, a heavenly savior, whose saving act had been hidden for long ages but had now been revealed to saints (like Paul) whose eyes had been opened to see the message of the Son in the Jewish scriptures. And even prior to becoming "Christians" (as we can tell from Paul's complaints about "false apostles," there was by no means any widespread agreement as to just what a Christian was or believed at that point), many of them would have been familiar with Greek Platonism, the concept of the divine Logos or Word, the beliefs of the numerous dying/rising savior god cults prevalent at the time, and so on. Despite the persistance of the old Roman gods, these were the dominant religious ideas of the age.

So they wouldn't have been confused in the least by Paul's reference to Jesus being crucified (which not all Christians believed, btw--many regarded Christ as a Revealer, who saved by imparting spiritual knowledge and wisdom, not through sacrifice). Paul was drawing from scriptural references to "hanging on a tree" (Genesis 40:19, Deuteronomy 21:22), which he regarded as cryptic references to the Son's sacrifice, and giving them vividness and immediacy by equating "hanging on a tree" with crosses and crucifixion.

Please note that in 1 Peter 2:24 we read, "he himself bore our sins in his body ON THE TREE." Now you might ask yourself, why is "PETER" being the confusing one? Why is he going back to Scripture and talking about trees, instead of coming right out and saying "the cross"? (In fact, why is his whole comment about Christ's actions--2:22-25--pulled directly from Scripture, with no indication that these verses were "fulfilled" in a recent historical ministry? He talks as if the verses WERE the events, not prophecies of recent historical events.)

If you think I'm stretching things here, luvluv, then you need to familiarize yourself with midrashic interpretation. Taking random Scriptural passages out of context, reinterpreting them, twisting and bending them into new shapes, and applying them to new contexts (often with inventive use of wordplay) was all the rage back then (and it still is). Look what Matthew did later--taking the Hebrew word "netzer" (branch or sprout) from Isaiah 11:1 and saying this passage was fulfilled because Jesus supposedly grew up in a town named Nazareth. And you honestly think it's more of a stretch for Paul to paint a vivid picture of Christ's heavenly sacrifice by calling it a crucifixion--a familiar sight throughout the Empire--instead of sticking to "hanging on a tree" like 1 Peter does? Actually, it would seem quite natural for Paul himself to envision the "hanging on a tree" as a crucifixion.

Try thinking of it this way. Pagans back then thought of their gods as doing ordinary things like eating, drinking, sleeping, making love, making babies, making war, being wounded in battle, and so on. But no one confused the gods with ordinary flesh and blood people. It's sort of the same thing. All the early Christians KNEW Jesus was the divine Logos, the pre-existent Son, the Heavenly Redeemer, who had performed his saving act in a spiritual dimension. That's what had been preached to them and taught to them, that was their worldview. Saying that he had been crucified was not going to make them say, "Whoa....! Are you saying that Christ was here on earth as a human being and was killed by the Romans?" They would have no problem imagining crucifixions taking place in a spiritual realm just as they took place on earth.

Still, you're partly right. People did get confused after the gospels were written, became widely circulated, and began to be thought of as histories instead of allegories. With Jerusalem destroyed and Palestine's inhabitants deported, Christianity began to spread ever more rapidly among Gentiles (including large numbers of the uneducated lower classes) who were unfamiliar with Greek Platonism and other metaphysical concepts. These pagans, unlike Jews and Platonists, saw nothing wrong with believing that a god took on actual flesh and was nailed to a cross. Even so, belief in a purely spiritual Christ persisted for quite some time.

luvluv, you keep picking at bits and pieces of Doherty's argument. What's happening is that you're failing to see the forest for the trees. You bring up objections to one argument without realizing that Doherty has already addressed those objections elsewhere on his site.

AGAIN, if you'd just give the site a thorough reading, it seems to me that you would save yourself a lot of time. Maybe you STILL wouldn't agree with Doherty, but at least you'd see that he has already covered most, if not all, of the objections you can come up with...either in the main or supplementary articles, or in the reader feedback sets.

Gregg